“You go first,” she whispered.
He spared her a glance then walked through and surveyed the room while she stayed at the door.
“No ghosts,” he called to her.
“Did you check by the window?” she called back.
“Julia,” he replied with patience that was strained but in an amused way, “there are no ghosts in your room.”
She walked in hesitantly and when she saw the room was clear of spooky spectres, she moved around in order to turn on every light she could all the while he watched her. She was trembling and edgy and expected to see the apparition at any moment.
When she got near Douglas, he caught her arm with his hand to stop her and he dipped his head to look closely at her.
“You really are frightened,” he stated softly.
“I told you!” she cried. “I saw it! She was standing… floating… forming, whatever! Right over there!” Julia pointed at the corner. “And what’s more, The Master scratches at the window every night. I hear him and I saw him once too.”
“Who told you this story?” Douglas asked, his voice and face now beginning to betray anger.
“No one, I saw him and heard him and felt her. I asked Mrs. K…” She stopped when his head tipped back and his eyes moved to the ceiling.
After a few seconds, his gaze locked on hers. “Mrs. Kilpatrick told Tamsin these stories too when she was a little girl. Tamsin believed them all her life, just like you do now.”
“Well, Tamsin didn’t tell me. Neither did you. But I saw or felt them both and I know Ruby does as well and so does Veronika.”
“It’s an old ghost story. Someone puts it in your mind and you see it.”
“So,” she stood with hands on her hips, “there was no old baron who died trying to get in this house while his wife was locked inside and mysteriously strangled?”
“That story is true,” he admitted.
“See!” Julia threw up her arms, dislodging his hand.
When it was clear she wasn’t going to listen to him or calm down, he grabbed her and pulled her into the safety and warmth of his strong arms and, Julia had to admit, she felt exactly that. Warmth and safety. Intense warmth and safety.
Oh dear.
“Julia, listen to me,” Douglas ordered quietly when she automatically relaxed in his arms. “You’re safe here. Nothing is going to happen to you.”
She stared into his eyes and they were so serious and so grave, she believed him.
“Promise?” she asked on a whisper, sounding childish but she didn’t care because, bottom line, she’d just seen a ghost! Douglas nodded and then something occurred to her. “What were you doing in the dining room?”
He smiled and his arms tightened. “Coming to see how sorry you were about your comment earlier this evening,”
It was such an audacious thing to say and do, and the night had been so pleasant, she threw back her head and laughed, then tilted it forward and rested her forehead against his chest. After she caught her breath, she looked at him and noticed he was grinning down at her.
That grin warmed her even more and made her stomach clench pleasantly.
Even so, she informed him, “I’m not that sorry.”
“I figured not.” He was still smiling.
She realised belatedly that this had gone on long enough. She stiffened in his arms, pulled away and said, “I’m okay now, Douglas, you can leave. But… um, thank you.”
He didn’t try to reach for her again and she fought against a strong sense of disappointment she knew she shouldn’t have.
“Are you going to send my electricity bill even higher by sleeping with all these lights on?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she lied without remorse.
He stared at her a moment and nodded again.
Then he carried on with his unusual sweet Douglas behaviour which meant his hand came up and he cupped the back of her head. Bringing her forward, he kissed her forehead. It was a strange and, she had to admit, gorgeously intimate gesture that made her feel something deeper than warmth. It was sweeter and it was also very, very frightening.
Then he walked away and she had to fight again to tamp down more disappointment as she watched him go.
The door closed behind him and she was forced to acknowledge, against her better judgement, even if it was only in her own mind, that she had a wonderful evening that night (apart from the ghost, of course) and Douglas had contributed to that wonderful evening, more than a little.
She washed her face, slathered on her moisturiser, put on stretchy pair of black pyjama bottoms and a plum-coloured tank top and slid into bed, keeping every light burning.
She was just settling down with her book when her door opened and she jumped a mile.
It was Douglas.
“What on earth do you think you’re doing?” she cried, pulling her covers up to her neck.
He still had on his deep tan corduroys and black turtleneck and he lifted his book to show her as he went around the room, turning off all the lights but the floor lamp in the turret.
She watched as he settled in one of the chairs there, rested his feet on the ottoman, opened his book and, eyes on the pages, he murmured, “Go to sleep, Julia.”
She stared at him dumbfounded because he knew she was frightened and, in knowing, did something about it.
Julia felt her stomach clench, again not unpleasantly, as she watched Douglas read.
Then, not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she set aside her own book, cuddled into the pillows and, for once, did exactly as he commanded.
Chapter Twelve
Thanksgiving
Douglas felt the smart, strategic thing to do was leave her room before she woke.
What he wanted to do was take off his clothes and join her in bed.
He didn’t often ignore his instincts when it came to strategy thus, as hard as it was, sometime after he heard her breath even, he turned out the light and sought his own bed.
He didn’t, however, do this before he silently approached her and watched her sleep. Pulling her heavy, soft hair away from her face to bear witness to the fact that Julia was just as beautiful unconscious as she was when she was conscious. Then he turned out the light and went to his rooms.
Breakfast, they had been told in advance, was the beginning of the festival of food that Thanksgiving Thursday would be. Julia was up and in the kitchens by the time he finished his morning run and arrived at the breakfast table, Oliver, Sam, Monique and Ruby already there. Just as he was taking his seat at the head of the table, Charlie wandered in from the kitchen, looking harassed, wearing an apron and sporting a smudge of flour on her face as she announced, “The girl is a lunatic. The entire Black Watch couldn’t eat all that food.”
Just then, Veronika shooed in a tired Lizzie and Will while Mrs. Kilpatrick and Julia brought in stacks of pancakes, platters of scrambled eggs, bacon and sausages, hash browns, jugs of syrup and, in the middle of the table, Julia set down an enormous coffee cake.
“Dig in, folks,” Julia announced, taking what had naturally, over the weeks, become her place at Douglas’s left side while Monique sat across from her on his right (the table was far too long for Douglas to take the head and Monique to take the foot).
Douglas saw his mother stare at all the food in disgust but everyone tore into it like they’d been starved for months, especially the children.
“Tell us the story of Thanksgiving, Auntie Jewel.”
This, Douglas heard with surprise, came from Lizzie.